The Philadelphia 76ers Have Simply Returned To The NBA Herd

After Sam Hinkie made 29 NBA teams nervous with his contrarian approach, the Philadelphia 76ers have made drastic moves to fall back in line with the NBA.

“If you are not the lead dog, your view never changes.” – Alaskan proverb

For three years, the Philadelphia 76ers were neither leader nor follower. The simply dared to break ranks, searching for an alternative route to an NBA championship because the odds for the 2012-2013 NBA version of the Philadelphia 76ers had no obvious route. The 2012-2013 season left the team winning just over thirty games , and in the process the team had exhausted its salary cap, splurged its draft pick allotments on bad free agents, and was stuck in a quagmire of a starless team heading down the slow spiral of sinking to the bottom of the NBA.

Argue what you will over what the former general manager did or didn’t do for this team, but remain clear on the results. Sam Hinkie accelerated the 76ers demise, hit the imaginary wall of losing games in the NBA, and lived to tell the tale. He allowed the Philadelphia 76ers to stray over uncharted territory, breaking ranks from the other 29 cattle, in the hopes of getting to a championship on an alternative route. The traditional methods would require many years, and might never result in a realistic chance as the Sixers would be stuck in the process of trying to replace an aging veteran with no way of adding to the overall talent pool.  While some perceive as Hinkie’s methods as being far too slow, it’s actually designed to rapidly accelerate an NBA team rebuild by synchronizing “positives”.

“Basketball minds” has been used frequently as some concept that is unique to the NBA.  It’s not.  It’s called instant gratification, or as I had labeled it in a previous article, a Win Loss Paradox.   If you are in a race with 29 other competitors, and it’s the same sequence of events, the same course, and the same teams in front while you have fallen to the back of the pack, why would you continue to attempt to compete in the same order and manner as the 29 other teams?  The only way one team “pulls ahead” is to take a risk and be rewarded for it. Signing a free agent places a risk on the NBA team to get more value from the player than the team is compensating that player.   Trading with another NBA team is presuming that when the trade is completed, your team has received far more in value than the team had given up.  General managers of NBA teams know that it’s a grand game of poker.  You either need to be awfully lucky at pulling incredible talent out of the draft, be awfully savvy at trading your players and routinely receive more value in return.  Sam Hinkie did neither exceptionally well.  He counted cards and changed the odds.

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Like any casino that discovers a gambler thwarting the game by updating the virtual odds with each revealed card, the NBA simply removed Sam Hinkie from the casino.   But instead of repossessing the chips, the team simply placed the 76ers assets into the hands of Jerry Colangelo’s son, Bryan Colangelo.

In the April 10, 2016 press conference, we were told that the extensive search of the Philadelphia 76ers, which reportedly identified Bryan Colangelo as early as January 2016, was a thorough and objective based manhunt.   Well, I spent 30 minutes at my computer and believed that I had identified a better general manager candidate for the Philadelphia 76ers by the name of Danny Ferry.

Listen, I’m not down on Bryan Colangelo as much as I am discouraged by what he does not bring to the team.  It’s back to conventional ways of thinking.   For all the lip service of entrusting the process and embracing basketball analytics techniques, the track record of Bryan Colangelo is not as much of an innovator nor as a proven winner of NBA championships.  He’s simply the “γνωστό όνομα”, or familiar name.   He was simply the only son of Jerry Colangelo, a son who had assumed the team after his father had stepped away from the Phoenix Suns, he is once more assuming an NBA team after his father steps away from it.

That’s his call to fame.

If you line up his total history as a general manager of an NBA team, from 1995-2013, the first eleven years after taking over from his father, and the last five as general manager of the Toronto Raptors, you will find what you expect.   In the transactions, Bryan Colangelo won some deals, but other deals he gave away far more value than he received.  As far as success of his team, the Phoenix Suns made it to the Western Conference Finals twice, and both times were turned away.  Without inheriting his father’s team, he had a more modest showing with the Raptors, losing two consecutive years in the first round before missing post season entirely.  Yes, he was twice lauded individually by the NBA for “Executive of the Year”.  But that’s like Miss Congeniality.  He made moves to improve his team well enough to make a playoff appearance, but not to get to the NBA championship game. Ultimately, he left the Toronto Raptors in a shambles. That’s the risk of going with the pack.

In neither tenure was his team able to make it to the NBA championship.  Now, in the room filled with assets of the Philadelphia 76ers, we must believe his role will lead the team to the place he himself has never been.

Welp, I don’t see it.  There is nothing to suggest otherwise.  Sam Hinkie admitted that NBA transactions depend upon random probability, so he went about fixing the odds in the Sixers favor.  Colangelo will do none of that, and so eventually the odds will keep the Philadelphia 76ers in the herd.  For most fans, that will be enough. Winning will come, as Colangelo restructures the 76ers roster to match the veteran youth mix of other teams.  Will we get better value as he trades our young assets to other teams?  On some trades, while on others another team will end up at an advantage.

Next: Will The Philadelphia 76ers Trade Salary Space For 2016 Draft Picks?

The NBA house has been restored to order.  The Philadelphia 76ers, bastions of innovation, have now subjugated to the will of the masses.  No longer marching off the path, we have fallen into our dutiful place behind the other teams of the NBA. Because that’s where “basketball minds” want us… all bunched up where they can keep an eye on us.  After all, that’s where all NBA championships happen, don’t they?  But I guess our view will never change.

At least in the madness of Sam Hinkie, we were our own person.  Now, more than ever, it feels as though we have all failed a little before the competition even gets started.  We’ll win games, we’ll makes some noise.  In the grand scheme for many, that may be enough to placate the fans.  Walking on the edge is dangerous territory, so dangerous that we turned back.  It wasn’t that the fanbase lost it’s nerve, it’s the fact that the NBA didn’t appreciate our willingness to try something new.  But unless we discover something quickly, it will take many years to fight our way through the other 29 teams by following in their footsteps.   Unless one of them breaks rank and leapfrogs the herd.